Pen.



W. VON BOLTON.

PEN.

' APPLIOATION FILED JUNE 8, 1907.

930,932. Patented Aug. 10,1909.

Talkie/um (z/zdfron lied.

ZZmZ d/um ulna/ Lon.

Ta all it may concern:

"Be it known that I, WERNER VON BoL'roiy, a subject of the Gzarof Russia, and res1- UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE. v WERNER VON BOLTON, OF GHARLOTTENBUItG, GERMANY, ASSIIGNOR 'lO SIEMENS & HALSKE,

A. G., OF BERLINGEBMANY, CORPORATION OF GERMANY.

PEN.

i No; 930,932.

, Specification of Letters Patent.

Patented Aug. 10, 1909.

Original application filed February 1'7, 1905, Serial No. 246,189. Divided. and this application filed .Tune 8, 1907.

. seriaim. 378,027.

dent of Charlotte-nburg, near Berlin, Germany, have invented a certain new and use vful'.Improvement in Pens, of which the following is awspecification.

. 'My. presentapplication constitutes divisional application, F of my original ap- 'plica-tion, filed February '17, 1905, serially numbered 246,189.

My invention relates to pens, by which I mean .to:-: indicate & instruments adapted for writing, drawln orana logous uses.

..More --particu arly, the invention comprises a pen in which thenib or flexible portion contains or is composed oftantalum combined withan' lement of the iron oup, the shank being ormed ofany suitab e material s'uch as steel or of course also of the same material asfthe nib. Hereto'fore such instruments have been made of other ma terials such as steel, gold or other metals, or

of glass, stone orthe like. They should'be very h-ard.to enable them to resist the tendency to wearing out, but at the same time they should have considerable resilience or 'fleXibiIi'ty, and also be able to resist the attack 1 of the writing fluids or other detrimental I agencies. i

Accordmg'tomy present invention, I employ in place'of the heretofore used ma:

terials, ,a substancewhich has theqadvantages offall the heretofore used; substances, but lacks their disadvantagesl' Furthermore it \has advantages which'nonefof the'fma terials heretofore employed for similar-pur poses possess. This material isjvtaii't-alum combined withan. element of the iron group.

Tantalum possesses like steel the pro erty of being easily worked and hardened, an also offers" eat resistance to fracture, and has great lxibility or resilience. Its hardhess can. be {increased to such a degree as to greatly, ekce'ed that of the best kinds of steel and even thato'f the usually employed stones. Withregard to the greatest degree of hardness which it can attain, it is almost equal tothediamond. It has the further advantage over steel inbein one of the precious metals which is. not 'afiected by the atmosphere, and which at ordinary temperatures completely resists the action of most acids. Although being harder than steel it'is still more elastic than steel. All of these properties are of course of great importance in the article forming the subject matter of my invention.

In the accompanying drawing, I have shown by' way of example two forms of pens constructed in accordance with my invention.

Figure 1 is a top plan View of a pen constructed entirely of tantalum and iron, whereas, Fig.2 is a top plan view of a pen having its nib portion composed of tantalum and iron, steel.

In order to be able to work the metal properly it must previously be well fused. By the fusing process the tantalum is freed from impurities and rendered homogeneous. The fusing is best accomplished by 'while its shank isiicomposed of :meansoflthe electric current in a vacuum.

After the metal has been thus melted it can i be easily worked mechanically in any known manner. It can be hammered,rolled, drawn, filed and the like,'and thereby brought into every desired form. When being-mechanically worked, especially if it containsa small quantity of ahardening medium, the metal readily assumes so great a degree of hardness that further working is renderedimpossible, and it must then be carefully reheated or annealed in order to berendered soft again. Inthis annealing process care must be taken that the temperature doesnot rise too high, as otherwise the metal is more easily attacked by the oxygen of the atmosphere. The metal will, however, even in the form of the finest drawn wires or thin- .nest, rolled bands stand a heating in the air heating, espeeially of line parts of metallictantalum, it is preferable to effect the heating indirectly by bringing large plates or drums 'to' the temperature to which the parts to be heated-are required to be brought, and

then tobring the objects of tantalum into contact with these plates or drums. If, on the other hand, it is desired to raise the objects of tantalumto higher temperatures without beingmateriallyaflected on their surfaces, it is advantageous'to effect the heating in a vacuum, as at very high tem peratures metallic tantalum combines with almost all known substances. Theheating metal. This other substance is an element of the iron. group. -Small quantities of the added substances are sufiicient to produce great hardness. If the admixture of such substances is increased materially beyond a small percentage, the metal generally becomes so brittle that'no further working of it is possible. With the proper proportion of added substances however, the metal, in spite of its increased hardness, is still more resilient than steel. v

A subsequent hardening of the already worked article of pure tantalum can be effected by heating the metal to redness in the presence of the hardening medium, in a similar manner to the treatment of steel.

As metallic tantalum is at present very expensive, only those parts need be'made of tantalum and an element of the iron group that are directly subject to wear and exposure, for instance, thewriting point or nib of the pens.

The most serviceable alloys of iron and tantalum are on the one hand those which consist of iron containing only small quantities up to a small percentage of tantalum, or on the other hand, those which consist of tantalum having only a small percentage of iron. The property of these alloys can be varied to a very, great extent by changing the proportions of the constituents.

In my present application, I claim specifically pens composed of tantalum and iron, the other parts of my invention being protected in applications divided from my original application, filed February 17, 1905, serially numbered 246,189, of which this application is also a division.

' I claim:

1. A pen having a nib portion containing tantalum and an element ofthe iron group.

2. A pen having a nib portion containing tantalum and iron.

3. A pen having a nib portion composed of tantalum and an element of the iron group.

4. A pen having a nib portion composed of tantalum. and iron.

WERNER VON BOLTON.

Witnesses WOLDEMAR HAUPT, HENRY HASPER. 

